Help building a Refugium

[johnstelting]

I drained a 10 gallon tank today and want to turn it into a Refugium for my 55 gallon reef tank.

Anyone out there like to do this?

Thanks

John

719-339-5646

[Crit21]

I guess it depends on what you plan to use it for--dedicated refugium, sump, filtration, or a combination. I have a huge sump from Mark that I converted for all three. The mech/bio filtration is first (swamp cooler blue filter medium, coral frags), then refugium/DSB chamber with a 6500K high-intensity fluorescent for the chaeto/caleurpa, then the sump with heater, return pump and protein skimmer. Do you have other means to do your skimming and filtration?

[johnstelting]

I have a hang on protein skimmer so I won't need room for that.

Basically I want a place to put some colorpia ??? to help get rid of my red slim algae.

Thanks

John

[murfman]

best thing to do to get rid of cyano bacteria is increase your water flow in those areas and find out the source. how big is your tank? return pumps? how much and what do you feed?

Calurpa will compete with micro algae for nutrients but is not a cureall. check your phosphate level and your nitrate level.

[Crit21]

I heard poor lighting (or maybe lighting spectrum) could a factor too.

I'm using both caleurpa and chaeto, and I make sure the flow through the sump is unobstructed.

Murf,

Can I get some more chaeto from you sometime? I want to get those dwarf serpents again. I put mine in the main tank and they disappeared into the reef or fish (some of both?).

[murfman]

Dan, sure thing but it needs to grow out some, I just pruned it back and gave away the cuttings.

[Crit21]

It's the stars that I'm after. I have a ton of chaeto.

[johnstelting]

I have plently of lighting. On for only 9 hours a day. Only feed a cube of frozen per day.... Have 3 power heads in a 55 gallon tank. One powerhead shoots stream directly across where the red slime algae starts from. Only have hang on skimmer and Whisper hang on filter now. That's why I wanted to try to make a refugium out of the 10 gallon tank. I was told to try and add charcol to my tank and that seems to have helped, just wanting to try something else.

Thanks

John

[Crit21]

Charcoal...If there's a correlation between adding charcoal and your cyano, you definitely have some excess nutrient that charcoal may be removing (up to the point where the charcoal is saturated and begins releasing again.